Featured: Google Chromebook Buying Guide – 2013 Fall and Holidays

Lately, Google has really started to push their Chromebook project. In the past year, we’ve seen some amazing hardware announced running Chrome OS. There was the Samsung Chromebook running on the Exynos 5 chip for $249, then there was the Acer Chromebook that was $199. Now that we are near the holiday season, we’ve seen a few more Chromebooks pop up. So which one should you buy? Well we are going to try and help you figure that out today.

Specifications

Chromebook Pixel

The Chromebook Pixel is still my favorite Chromebook. I love everything about it, except the price. The Chromebook Pixel has a 2560×1600 resolution display that is also a touchscreen. Not to mention the i5 processor inside and 4GB of RAM. It’s the best machine, but not everyone wants to spend more than a grand on a Chromebook. Luckily there are some other great Chromebooks available.

Chromebook 11 – from HP

This is the newest, well one of the newest Chromebooks. This one is from HP, and was announced just a couple of weeks ago. It’s a really nice looking laptop, with an IPS LCD display. But the best part about it is probably the fact that it can be charged using a microUSB port. I haven’t seen any other Chromebooks or laptops for that matter, that can be charged using a microUSB charger. Which is awesome since I have a ton of battery packs (and I’m sure many of you do as well) which can charge the Chromebook 11 if you’re on a road trip, or even use a car charger.

Chromebook 14 – From HP

This one is a bit bigger, it’s the 14-inch Chromebook from HP. It comes with 4GB of RAM, which I think should be the minimum for Chromebooks these days. It also features two USB 3.0 ports along with a SD card slot and an HDMI-out port. Along with being one of the first Haswell Chromebooks, alongside the Acer C720 which is below. Giving it amazing battery life for a 14-inch Chromebook. It’s also able to connect to T-Mobile’s 4G HSPA+ network. This particular Chromebook comes with 200MB of HSPA+ data per month for two years for free! Of course, you can buy more data if needed.

Acer C720 Chromebook

This Chromebook is Acer’s successor to their Chromebook from last year. Which I actually bought for my dad and he loves it. Since it is at a $249 price tag, it’s going to cut a lot of corners. As expected, the display isn’t the best, the design isn’t too amazing (but who cares for $249?) the build quality is kinda cheap too. But it does have great performance, but you’d kind of expect that from a new Haswell chip and 4GB of RAM inside. Seeing as it’s basically running a browser as the OS.

Honorable mentions

There are still a few others that are being released this year. A few weeks ago, Intel announced that they have a few Chromebooks coming out from their partners that would have Haswell chips inside. Those included ASUS, Acer, HP and Toshiba. While HP and Acer’s Haswell Chromebooks are already available (or will be in a couple weeks when it comes to the HP Chromebook 14), Toshiba’s Chromebook and ASUS’ Chromebox does not yet have a release date, so you’ll want to watch out for those.

I’m sure we’ll see even more Chromebooks announced next year, as Google continues to push Chrome and Chrome OS. Which Chromebook would you buy?